Image source, Reuters

Earlier we reported that Israeli troops had carried out overnight raids in Jenin in the West Bank.

While Gaza has been the focus of Israel's retaliation against Hamas since the 7 October attacks, the West Bank - which is run by the Palestinian Authority but occupied by Israel - has seen a surge in violence at the same time. According to the UN more than 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces , externalsince then.

As well as the raids in Jenin, Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting, external that Israeli forces have carried out raids in several towns. It says two men were killed in the districts of Hebron and Bethlehem overnight and 20 families left Beit Furik, east of Nablus, after their homes were bulldozed, external.

The agency also reports , externalthat more than 50 workers were arrested in the town of Barta’a south of Jenin after homes and shops were raided. by Israeli soldiers.

Reuters news agency also reported Israeli troops carried out a raid at the Am'ari refugee camp near Ramallah.

Image source, AFP

We have just heard that Rafah border crossing is still closed this morning. Hamas say they want more injured people to be allowed out of Gaza through the crossing before more foreign citizens are allowed to leave.

The crossing between Gaza and Egypt - through which aid convoys have been getting in and foreign nationals and injured people getting out - was also closed yesterday to people, UN agencies said, external. They said it was shut for unconfirmed reasons.

We'll bring you the latest from Rafah crossing as we hear more.

Jon Donnison
BBC News, Jenin

Image source, EPA

As we passed through Jenin refugee camp this morning, word got to us that the Israeli army was moving back in.

Minutes later, as we made a quick exit, warning sirens rang out. The risk of getting caught in crossfire was too great.

The Israeli military said it had sent undercover units to arrest Palestinian militants. It was the second Israeli raid in the space of a few hours.

Overnight the army once again ripped up the already badly damaged streets with bulldozers. Residents in the camp said there were also two drone strikes. There are no reported casualties.

For more than two hours sporadic gunfire could be heard from our hotel in the centre of Jenin as militants targeted the bulldozers. Israeli raids like this are happening in Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank almost every night.

There's been more fighting in the Gaza Strip overnight - and pictures have started coming in this morning of people searching through rubble.

We're working to find out more details of exactly what's happened and which areas have been damaged.

The Israeli military says it struck a Hamas military post in the north. The Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Interior says six people were killed overnight when a house was bombed in Khan Younis, and others were injured in strikes on Gaza City and in the Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Alarm bells ring in the US over what might happen to Gazapublished at 08:06 Greenwich Mean Time 9 November 2023

08:06 GMT 9 November 2023

Yolande Knell
BBC Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Image source, Reuters

It does seem that the comments by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week that his country could assume responsibility for Gaza’s security "for an indefinite period" after the war set off alarm bells in Washington.

We have also had statements by politicians in Netanyahu’s governing coalition advocating the rebuilding of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.

A far-right fringe group has organised a rally in Tel Aviv calling for this later.

The best indication so far of how the US sees things, assuming Israel succeeds in its mission of toppling Hamas, came in comments by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the G7 meeting of top diplomats in Japan.

He said it was clear that Israel "cannot occupy Gaza" although a transitional period at the end of the conflict was realistic.

His idea adds up to a united, Palestinian-led government for Gaza and the West Bank after the war. He presents this as a step towards Palestinian statehood in line with the long-time international formula for peace here.

The BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen has travelled with the Israel Defense Forces into Gaza. While the BBC had editorial control of the report, the section with the IDF has been viewed by them.

The IDF showed the BBC what they said was a Hamas weapons factory, below a home in which children lived.

Image source, IDF

The Israel Defense Forces have posted on X, external that its soldiers have taken over a Hamas outpost in Jabalia in northern Gaza.

They said it took "10 hours of fighting, during which they eliminated terrorists, captured many weapons, uncovered terrorist tunnel shafts, including a shaft located near a kindergarten and leading to an extensive underground route".

It comes as the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported , externalthat Israeli planes had bombed and destroyed a house in Jabalia refugee camp with people trapped under rubble. It also said dozens were wounded in Gaza City.

The BBC has not been able to verify the reports. Israel’s military earlier said Hamas had lost control of northern Gaza and its troops have advanced into Gaza City.

Image source, Getty Images

The UN commissioner for human rights says both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes during the conflict in Gaza. Volker Türk said the "atrocities" committed by Palestinian armed groups and the continued holding of hostages, were "war crimes" - as was "the collective punishment" of Palestinians by Israel and the "forcible evacuation of civilians".

The rules for war are spelt out in the Geneva Conventions, and other international laws and agreements.

They cover a lot of things - including the rules that military forces cannot deliberately attack civilians and the wounded must be cared for, including injured soldiers who have rights as prisoners of war.

Hostage taking, external is prohibited and considered a war crime. It is defined as “seizure or detention of a person, combined with threatening to kill, to injure or to continue to detain”.

The law also warns that countries engaged in conflict "may not deport or forcibly transfer the civilian population of an occupied territory… unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand”, known as an act of displacement, external.

More here.

Image source, Getty Images

Some 80 countries and international organisations will meet in Paris later today to discuss ways of getting humanitarian aid to people in Gaza.

The French government is hosting the conference - which will look at restoring the supply of water, fuel and electricity in Gaza, while ensuring aid is not diverted to Hamas.

Delegations from a few Arab nations will be there, including the Palestinian Authority which governs the West Bank, and Egypt. Also attending will be EU chiefs and some European leaders.

But Israel will be not be represented and the United States is only sending a low-level team. French officials have said Israel is being kept informed of developments.

The UN said last week that some $1.2bn (£979m) is needed to meet the needs of people in Gaza and the West Bank.

Both sides in the conflict in Gaza and Israel have committed war crimes, the UN high commissioner for human rights has said.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Rafah border crossing, Volker Türk said: The atrocities that were perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups on the seventh of October were heinous, brutal and shocking, they were war crimes as is the continued holding of hostages.”

He added: "They were war crimes as is the continued holding of hostages.

"The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts also to war crimes, as does the unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians. Domestic bombardments by Israel has killed, maimed and injured in particular women and children."

Türk described the bombardment of the Gaza Strip as putting "an unbearable toll on human lives, on civilians".

New mothers in a hospital in southern Gaza speak of giving birth amid war and the fears they have for their babies' futures.

It will take months and something resembling a "Marshall Plan" for Gaza to recover after the Israeli war, Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political commentator based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, says.

The Marshall Plan was a huge aid package the United States sent to Western Europe in the aftermath of World War Two.

The Gaza Strip, which Odeh says is being "decimated", will take months of rebuilding to become habitable again.

Israeli PM Netanyahu said his country would have “overall security responsibility” for the Gaza Strip for “an indefinite period” once the fighting was over, in an interview with US channel ABC News.

"What Netanyahu is doing right now is buying time for himself because he faces investigations and accountability - even his closest allies in the Israeli media are asking him to step down because he refuses to take responsibility," Odeh told the BBC’s World at One programme. Odeh said there needed to be a political framework “from the world”.

The head of the International Red Cross's office in Gaza has told the BBC one of its aid convoys delivering medical supplies to the Al-Quds hospital in southern Gaza was hit, leaving one of their truck drivers within “centimetres” of death.

“Frankly, the conditions are not conducive for humanitarians to work right now, let alone to live in,” William Schomburg, who was also a part of the aid convoy, told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

“We need a basic level of safety and supplies. We also need to be able to ensure that we can rotate staff,” he noted, adding that hospitals remain low on fuel, while the search for potable drinking water has become a day to day challenge. “Nowhere in Gaza today is safe,” Schomburg added.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that 50,000 Palestinians fled northern Gaza as its forces once again opened a safe passage on the main north-south road for several hours.

Schomburg described a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the south with droves of “terrified civilians”, including the elderly, barefoot children and pregnant women, looking for food, water, and protection.

Image source, IDF

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the military has destroyed 130 Hamas tunnel shafts since the start of its ground offensive in Gaza.

"IDF combat engineers are currently working to expose and destroy Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including tunnels. Water and oxygen storage discovered inside the tunnels indicates Hamas' preparations for prolonged stays underground," the IDF said in a statement.

On Wednesday, it said that it had destroyed a Hamas tunnel near a UNRWA-sponsored school in the Beit Hanoun area of northern Gaza.

The IDF made the claim in a statement released Wednesday and also shared a video allegedly showing the destruction "near the school" through a drone camera.

Israel began striking Gaza after the Hamas attacks on 7 October, which saw 1,400 people killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

The IDF also confirmed the death of one more soldier taking the number of soldiers killed in the ground offensive to 31.

The Hamas-run health ministry says the number of people killed in Gaza has risen to 10,569 since Israel's retaliatory strikes began.

The second in command of Hezbollah - the powerful Iranian backed militia in Lebanon - says Israel's killing of civilians in Gaza risks causing a wider war in the Middle East.

The Shia Islamist group - classed as a terrorist organisation by the UK, US and the Arab League - is the largest political and military force in Lebanon.

Speaking in Beirut, Sheikh Naim Qassem told the BBC’s Orla Guerin that "very serious and very dangerous developments could occur in the region, and no-one would be able to stop the repercussions".

"The danger is real," he says, "because Israel is increasing its aggression against civilians and killing more women and children. Is it possible for this to continue and increase, without bringing real danger to the region? I think not."

He insists any escalation would be linked to Israel's actions. "Every possibility has a response," he says.

Read more of Orla Guerin’s interview with Sheikh Naim Qassem here.

The White House has responded to UN Secretary-General's comments yesterday that Gaza is "becoming a graveyard for children".

"Hamas is putting these children and their families in danger," US spokesman John Kirby said.

Speaking at a press conference, Kirby added that Hamas were "building tunnels under their hospitals" and using children as hostages.

"We know that there is a portion of the 240 plus that they're holding as hostages are kids - they're kids. And we've been trying mightily, to get those children released," he said.

Kirby also said that the US had asked their Israeli counterparts, "to be as discriminate and careful in their targeting as possible," to avoid more civilian tragedies.

Ayeshea Perera
Live editor Singapore

Image source, Getty Images

Welcome back to our coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict - you can read our previous posts here. It's just past 06:30 in Israel and Gaza - here's more on what's happened over the past few hours.

• The UN human rights chief has accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes. And UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres slammed Hamas for using people as human shields but also said that the number of civilians killed in Gaza showed something was "clearly wrong" with Israeli military operations
• The Israeli military claims that 50,000 Palestinians have fled to the south from the Gaza City area in the north - Israel has told Gazans to leave the north for their safety

• The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross's Gaza office described what he called a "humanitarian catastrophe" in southern Gaza saying he has seen terrified civilians including pregnant women, barefoot children and the elderly arriving there on foot looking for safety, food and drinking water.
• The World Health Organization has warned that the Gaza Strip faces an increased risk of disease spreading because access to clean water and crowding in shelters has been disrupted by Israeli air strikes
• Meanwhile a convoy carrying medical supplies reached Gaza City’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa. It was just the second delivery to the hospital during the month-long conflict
• Israel began striking Gaza after the Hamas attacks on 7 October, which saw 1,400 people killed and more than 200 taken hostage
• The Hamas-run health ministry says the number of people killed in Gaza has risen to 10,569 since Israel began its military response to the 7 October attacks
• US republican candidates voiced support for Israel in its war against Hamas and rejected calls for a ceasefire in Gaza
• Meanwhile a source has told the BBC discussions are taking place over the release of 12 hostages, half of them Americans, in exchange for a three-day humanitarian pause in fighting. However Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed "false rumours" and said there would be no ceasefire "without the release of our hostages"
• The BBC's international editor, Jeremy Bowen, has travelled with Israeli forces into Gaza - he didn't see a single building that wasn't badly damaged and was shown a building containing both a family apartment and what the military said was weapons making workshops